Masters Of War

Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks. You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly. Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain. You fasten all the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion' As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud. You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins. How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you That even Jesus would never Forgive what you do. Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul. And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand over your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.------- Bob Dylan 1963

Korean pop culture may not (yet) turn heads in Los Angeles or London, but its impact -- economic as well as cultural -- across the developing world is startling. First taking off in China and Southeast Asia in the late 1990s, but really spiking after 2002, Korean TV dramas and pop music have since moved to the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and now even parts of South America. "Gangnam Style," a music video by the rapper/satirist PSY, has been viewed 292 million times since it was released in July. Since then he's been welcomed with open arms, and has beenspotted teaching several celebrities his iconic "horsey dance."

Indeed, the rise of K-Pop is the bellwether of a variety of trends that are changing the global economy (and emerging markets in particular) in fundamental ways. Its success as a product - but, more importantly, as a cultural brand promoting Korean exports ranging from soft drinks to cosmetics to consumer electronics -- suggests that Western countries aren't likely to have a lock on the hearts and wallets of developing countries for long. More generally, it illustrates the new reality that the North-South pattern of trade and cultural exchange that has dominated the world since the ascendance of European colonialism is giving way and making room for unexpected soft power.

South Korea's economy, reclassified by the IMF as "advanced" back in 1997 (along with Singapore and Israel), has doubled in size since then. But unlike most advanced economies, a disproportionate share of its exports (and foreign investment) goes to developing countries. In 2011, Korean exports to China alone totaled $134 billion -- more than U.S. exports to China and about the same as those from the European Union.

Pop culture, in reality, is no more than a blip in the total Korean economy, comprising $137 million in exports out of a $1.5 trillion in 2011. However, while Korea mainly focuses on staying in front of the world's electronics, auto, steel and shipbuilding industries, pop culture has proved surprisingly important to Korea's commerce. A survey of 300 companies by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry found that 52 percent considered the Korea Wave -- the term for the success of Korean popular culture abroad -- influential in increasing exports.Another survey (this one of households across East Asia) by the Korea International Trade Association found that 80 percent of respondents said the Korean Wave led them to buy more Korean goods. "There's a confidence to the ‘made-in-Korea' label now," explained Tyler Brûlé, the editor of Monocle, the London-based lifestyle magazine. "It's fascinating." READ MORE

US military deaths in Afghanistan hit 2,000 - Salon.com: Do NOT blame the Afghan people for the deaths of our soldiers. Do not even blame the Taliban for these deaths.Put the blame where the blame is due.Right smack on top of the shoulders of our MASTERS OF WAR. Starting with our 'war of choice president', you know the one. The one who has his own personal drone hit list. The one that called Afghanistan the 'just war'. Instead of saving lives and ending the war, he agreed to a surge. One that failed by the way. Ya that one.Blame our spineless chicken hawk, war mongering congress. Ya you know the ones. The Congresscritters that would rather take a political donation than do the right thing by keeping us out of corporate wars. Blame the previous regime of the W/Cheney era. The ones that got us into all of this based on a total pack of lies. Blame Obama and his crew for not prosecuting those war criminals. Blame Obama for taking it to levels that W/Cheney only dreamed of.The war mongering masters of war needed and got a democrat to take it to a new level.A republican would have gotten too much political blow back.But not a democrat. Not a democrat like Obama.These spineless gutless wonders of wannabe democrats still give this war mongering president a pass.WHY?Because he is a democrat.Shame on the dems for not calling him out on this.The democratic party is complicit in today's wars, by being the cowards that they are. All future deaths in Afghanistan and other endless wars now rest on our governments souls.A soul that they sold long ago. How I hate, and despise these Masters of War.

The U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan ended last week. Conditions in Afghanistan are mostly worse than before it began.

That conclusion doesn’t come from anti-war advocates. It relies on data recently released by the NATO command in Afghanistan, known as ISAF, and acquired by Danger Room. According to most of the yardsticks chosen by the military — but not all — the surge in Afghanistan fell short of its stated goal:stopping the Taliban’s momentum.

Of course, that’s not ISAF’s spin. The command notes that enemy attacks from January to August 2012 are slightly lower, by 5 percent, from that period last year; and that the past two Augusts show a reduction in attacks of 30 percent. But the more relevant comparison is to 2009, when Afghanistan looked like such a mess that President Obama substantially increased troop levels. And compared to 2009, Afghanistan does not look improved.

A slide from a new ISAF report on Afghanistan war trends.

The chart above measures the various attacks the Taliban and associated insurgents launched against NATO forces, month by month. In August 2009, the peak of the fighting season and the height of the internal Obama administration debate over a troop surge, insurgents attacked U.S. and allied troops — using small-arms fire, homemade bombs, mortars and more — approximately 2,700 times. In August 2012, they attacked just shy of 3,000 times.

In August 2009, insurgents used just under 600 homemade bombs on U.S.-aligned forces. They used just over 600 homemade bombs on U.S.-aligned forces in August 2012.

The same trend holds for every other month in 2009 compared to every month in 2012 for which there is data: The insurgency launched more attacks this year. In some cases, substantially more: insurgents attacked about 2,000 times in July 2009 and a shade over 3,000 times in July 2012. ISAF registered about 475 attacks from homemade bombs in July 2009; and about 625 in July 2012.

Other data provided by ISAF, measuring the changes in attack patterns during the summer fighting seasons, show that the 30,000-plus surge troops cumulatively suppressed summer attacks in 2011 and 2012. 2012′s summer attacks have maintained 2011 levels — something recently acknowledged by Marine Gen. John Allen, who cautioned that any dip from 2011 “may not be statistically significant.”

But that suppressive force provided by the surge did not tamp down insurgent activity to levels seen in 2009, when Afghanistan looked sufficiently dire that a bipartisan consensus of Washington policymakers came to believe that a surge was necessary.

There are statistical exceptions to the rule reflected in the data. ISAF troops caused substantially fewer civilian casualties in 2012 than in 2009: in August 2012, for instance, ISAF judged itself responsible for perhaps 25 innocent deaths and injuries, compared to about 50 in August 2009. And civilian casualties caused by insurgents are also down somewhat from their 2009 levels, a sign that added U.S. troops helped protect Afghan lives. This data is consistent with patterns found independently by the United Nations.

And while it’s too soon to tell if a trend has developed, attacks in eastern Afghanistan — which the surge largely neglected — appear to be down from 2009 levels. At the same time, that might also be attributable to a change in insurgent attack patterns toward the massive, occasional assaults that the main insurgent operation in the east favors.

But now the surge is over, and debate on what it added up to begins. The end of direct U.S. combat in Afghanistan is scheduled for 2014, proposed by President Obama and endorsed as a “goal” by Republican challenger Mitt Romney, although the U.S. plans to keep substantial forces in Afghanistan beyond then. Meanwhile, the pathway “out” of Afghanistan, training Afghan forces, is imperiled by Afghan troops turning their guns on their U.S. mentors. There is little to no appetite within the country for another U.S. troop surge in what is now the U.S. longest war — and an unpopular one.

And there’s a number missing from ISAF’s latest set of war data. That’s 988 — the number of U.S. troops killed in action in Afghanistan or who died from their combat wounds since Obama announced the troop surge.

Interesting that when I went to google images and typed in Malawi farms.

Malawi farms for sale automatically came up.

By Michael Moran

The situation was grim. It was November 2005, and for more than a year, less than an inch of rain had fallen on much of the country. Irrigated tobacco farms, mostly foreign owned, had managed to survive, but in a land where 70 percent of GDP is based on farming — mostly an acre or less per plot — the prospect of extended drought raised the spectre of famine.

A desperately poor place, Malawi for years had been almost completely dependent on a mixture of tobacco export revenue, international aid donations and IMF and World Bank loans. Scientists have long understood that the vulnerability of the soil in Malawi and other places to drought was not merely a question of water, but also of nitrogen, the key ingredient in fertilizer that farmers elsewhere can afford but which was well beyond the reach of the average Malawian cropper.

So Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika stepped in, funding the distribution of small amounts of fertilizer to farmers all across the country.

The World Bank, led at the time by Paul Wolfowitz, the former Bush administration deputy defense secretary, objected to this move, as did the IMF. But Mutharika persisted, and within one harvest season, his farmers not only produced enough food to feed itself, but also enough to donate to neighbors in need.

The result surprised western aid experts, as well as Malawi’s African neighbors. Food security remains a problem in Malawi, as elsewhere in the so-called Guinea Savannah — a huge belt of arable (and largely untilled) land with unpredictable rainfall that stretches across Africa from the Atlantic coastline to the Indian Ocean.

But after the initial successes in Malawi, sceptical international donors jumped on board (though, eventually, they withdrew support after Mutharika, who died in April, started arresting his political opponents).

Still, the success of his decision to eschew western food relief for a more sustainable, long-term solution revived an old debate: Is Africa an agricultural basket case, or a potential bread basket?

This is not a new debate — indeed, in colonial times, Africa was a major source of food for the tables of its imperial European masters. But post-colonial chaos sent African agriculture into a steep decline.

But for years, development economists, agronomists and — oddly enough, Latin America experts — have argued that Africa could not only be self-sufficient in food, but also a major player in commodities markets, if only the emphasis on food relief were replaced by a longer term strategy.

At the crux of the debate is the experience of Brazil, another tropical region that once had trouble feeding its people. Back in the 1960s, Brazilian agronomists began experimenting with soil chemistry in a vast barren region called the Cerrado. Nothing much edible grew there at the time, though the region comprised more than 20 percent of the huge nation.

After several years of intensive research, however, scientists discovered that the addition of phosphorous and lime, the region’s soil would support a wide range of crops. Today, the region produces 70 percent of Brazil’s beef, and its huge soya, coffee and pulp farms have turned Brazil into a major agricultural exporter. READ MORE

The US government, as part of Obama’s unprecedented war on whistleblowers, has now fully embraced the pernicious theory that any leaks of classified information can constitute the crime of “aiding the enemy” or “communicating with the enemy” by virtue of the fact that, indirectly, “the enemy” will – like everyone else in the world – ultimately learn of what is disclosed.

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It seems clear that the US military now deems any leaks of classified information to constitute the capital offense of “aiding the enemy” or “communicating with the enemy” even if no information is passed directly to the “enemy” and there is no intent to aid or communicate with them. Merely informing the public about classified government activities now constitutes this capital crime because it “indirectly” informs the enemy.

***

If someone can be charged with “aiding” or “communicating with the enemy” by virtue of leaking to WikiLeaks, then why wouldn’t that same crime be committed by someone leaking classified information to any outlet: the New York Times, the Guardian, ABC News or anyone else?

***

International Law Professor Kevin Jon Heller made a similar point when the charges against Manning were first revealed:

“[I]f Manning has aided the enemy, so has any media organization that published the information he allegedly stole. Nothing in Article 104 requires proof that the defendant illegally acquired the information that aided the enemy. As a result, if the mere act of ensuring that harmful information is published on the internet qualifies either as indirectly ‘giving intelligence to the enemy’ (if the military can prove an enemy actually accessed the information) or as indirectly ‘communicating with the enemy’ (because any reasonable person knows that enemies can access information on the internet), there is no relevant factual difference between [Bradley] Manning and a media organization that published the relevant information.”

***

It is always worth underscoring that the New York Times has published far more government secrets than WikiLeaks ever has, and more importantly, has published far more sensitive secrets than WikiLeaks has (unlike WikiLeaks, which has never published anything that was designated “Top Secret”, the New York Times has repeatedly done so: the Pentagon Papers, the Bush NSA wiretapping program, the SWIFT banking surveillance system, and the cyberwarfare program aimed at Iran were all “Top Secret” when the newspaper revealed them, as was the network of CIA secret prisons exposed by the Washington Post). There is simply no way to convert basic leaks to WikiLeaks into capital offenses – as the Obama administration is plainly doing – without sweeping up all leaks into that attack.

France's 'Toughest' Budget: Super Tax on the Super Rich | Common Dreams: France unveiled on Friday a new budget that includes a 75% tax on millionaires. (photo: badlyricpolice via FlickrOK America now its your turn.Tax the elite 70-90%.They can afford it.They do NOT create jobs. They can do with one less mansion.Remember we used to tax the rich 91% in the 50's and 60's.And guess what, the American economy never had it better.

Bibi Netanyahu's Warning Reveals His Moments of Memory Loss | Common Dreams: Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu draws a red line on a graphic of a bomb as he addresses the 67th United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. Headquarters in New York.Why does Bibi the clown not show how many nukes ISRAEL has at their beckon call. A red line should be drawn around the nuclear armed rogue state of Israel. He has no credibility, no honor, and no shame.

Iran says to Nuclear Israel: Don't Talk to Us about "Red Lines" | Common Dreams: Why is there never any talk about Israel having nukes?News anchors like Wolf Blitzer who once worked for AIPAC would never dream of bringing this up.Why is it taboo to speak of Israel's nukes. What makes then so special. Israel has never signed the NPT, as such they do not need to confirm or deny their existence. Israel threatens Iran on a daily basis. Iran has no nukes, and has signed the NPT, unlike Israel who is a rogue nuclear capable state. Israel now has submarines that are nuclear capable. When will Israel be called out?Most likely when it is too late.Israel does not really want to attack Iran.They want us to do it for them. A red line should be drawn around Israel, NOT Iran.

On September 19th Spain woke up to the news of the death of Santiago Carrillo, General Secretary of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) in the crucial years 1960-82. He passed away at the age of 97 in his home in Madrid. Usually the death of a leader of the workers’ movement would only get limited press coverage and perhaps some official statement from trade unions, Socialist and Communist Party local branches, and so on. But this was completely different. All newspapers reserved their front page for the news. El País, the mouthpiece of the liberal bourgeoisie, paid fulsome homage to Carrillo with long tributes from prominent celebrities. King Juan Carlos came to Carrillo’s deathbed just two hours after he had died. He was quoted as saying that Carrillo had played a “fundamental role” in the establishing of democracy in Spain.

Why all this fuss about Carrillo? As the old Spanish proverb goes: “Dime Con Quien Andas, Y Te Dire Quien Eres” (“Tell me with who you go and I’ll tell you who you are”). Just as the ruling class never forgets its enemies, it equally never forgets its close friends and allies. A political review of Santiago Carrillo’s life shows us how he played a major role in aborting two revolutions.

Carrillo as a Young Socialist

Born on January 16th 1915, Santiago was the son of foundry worker and later well-known Socialist leader Wenceslao Carrillo who worked as a full-time official of the socialist trade union UGT and belonged to Largo Caballero’s Left faction of the Socialist Party (PSOE). Santiago was born and raised in Gijón, one of the main cities of Asturias in the North-west of Spain. In 1924 the family moved to Madrid where his father became the editor of Socialist Party daily El Socialista. At a very early age Santiago Carrillo became involved in both the UGT and in the FNJS, the Spanish Socialist Youth.

It was in the latter organization that he became a prominent leader, reaching the position of General Secretary by 1934. At this time the young Santiago Carrillo held a position which was completely in contrast to the path taken during the rest of his life. Then he was a close ally of Largo Caballero, the leader of the Socialist Left, and an advocate of the “bolshevisation” of the PSOE. As a leader of the Socialist Youth he participated in the call for a revolutionary general strike in October 1934 which led to the Asturian Commune when workers held power for nearly fifteen days before they were crushed by troops led by Franco.

After the defeat of the Asturian Commune, the Young Socialists turned sharply left. In a document called “Octubre, segunda etapa” (October, the second stage), co-written by Carrillo, the organisation drew up a balance sheet of the defeat of the October uprising. They came out against both the Social Democracy and Stalinism and called for the formation of a new revolutionary International. They contacted Andreu Nin (the leader of the then Trotskyist Communist Left - ICE) who had been expelled from the official CP and invited him to join them in the struggle to cleanse the Socialist movement of its reformist wing and help to form a genuine revolutionary party in Spain.

At that time, Carrillo and the other leaders of the Young Socialists were very sympathetic to Trotskyism. But Nin, motivated by sectarian considerations, rejected their offer. It is not possible to deal with the history of the Spanish Socialist Youth in this obituary (for a more detailed account, we recommendthis article by Pierre Broué). Suffice it to say that the actions of Andreu Nin played a fatal role in the future development of the Spanish Revolution, leaving the door open to the Stalinists, who began to pay serious attention to the FNJS, which had around 40,000 members. When Trotsky discovered what Nin had done, he described it as a betrayal and broke off relations with him.

The Spanish Revolution and civil war

According to the official historiography, Santiago Carrillo joined the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) on the eve of the battle for Madrid in November 1936. However, this dubious claim was undoubtedly invented by Carrillo to blur the fact that he had been won over to Stalinism more than a year earlier. While serving his sentence in the Modelo prison after the failed October 1934 insurrection, Carrillo received several visits from Vittorio Codovilla, an Italian-Argentinean Comintern agent.

In February 1936 he travelled to the Soviet Union. By then he was most certainly won over to Stalinism. It is important to stress the difference in time, because it allows us to understand how he used his leading position in the Spanish Socialist Youth to prepare meticulously the fusion between this organization (the FNJS) and the small Communist Youth in what was to become the Unified Socialist Youth (JSU).

This was the key factor in allowing Stalinism to win a mass base in Spain and in the final analysis, to strangle the revolution from within. Before capturing the Socialist Youth, the PCE was a very small party with less than eight thousand members nationally. The influx of a whole layer of young cadres provided Stalinism with a huge base. It is no coincidence that many of the people recruited through the JSU, just as Carrillo himself, were later installed in important positions in the army and in the bourgeois Republican state apparatus. They formed the backbone of the Party.

When the Civil War broke out on July 17th 1936, Santiago Carrillo was only 21 years old. In spite of his young age he played an important role on the Madrid Defence Junta. He was responsible for maintaining order in the capital. He played a big role in dismantling the anarchist CNT workers’ militias and patrols. He also participated in the repression of the Madrid POUM who had their papers censured and their offices attacked by Stalinist thugs.

His main concern, however, was to allow the Communist Party to keep a stronghold in the Spanish youth and to change it revolutionary class line to one that was in agreement with the class collaboration politics of the Popular Front now favoured by Moscow. In one speech after another he stressed that socialism was not on the agenda in Spain, and that any talk of carrying through the revolution was mere adventurism. It is no coincidence that these speeches won the confidence of many high ranking bureaucrats, careerist and petit-bourgeois that joined the ranks of the CP at that time.

It was these policies that undermined the Spanish Revolution and ultimately led to defeat and forty years of the Franco dictatorship. The tragic fate of the Spanish Revolution has been described in detail elsewhere (see in particularFelix Morrow’s book). Suffice to say that the working class had to pay a heavy price for the betrayal perpetrated by Santiago Carrillo and the PCE, assisted by the other leaders of the workers’ movement. Carrillo himself fled Spain in March 1939, just before the final defeat at the hands of Franco’s troops.

In exile: The development of euro-communism

For a period of forty years Carrillo would not set foot on Spanish soil. He travelled to France, then to Moscow, the United States, Mexico and then France again after its liberation from the Nazis. In this period he was still a second-line leader. In 1942 the then General Secretary, José Hernández had passed away after a long illness and Dolores Ibarruri (better known as La Pasionaria) had become the leader. In the faction fight that had occurred, Carrillo had supported Ibarruri strongly against her competitor, Jesús Hernández who was subsequently expelled from the party.

In 1960 La Pasionaria was already old and living in Moscow, where she was not even in noticeable contact with all the Spanish exiles there. She took over the presidency of the party and decided to hand over the general secretariat to Santiago Carrillo. From this position he purged Semprún and Claudín, who had began to question the party policy in Spain arguing that the only pending revolution in Spain was socialist, as opposed to the official view held by Carrillo about the need for a “democratic anti-feudal” revolution. Unfortunately, both Claudín and Semprún eventually moved to the right and ended up in the right wing of the Socialist Party.

In 1968 Carrillo began to distance the Party from the suffocating control of the Soviet Union. This process began with his criticism of the Soviet military intervention in Czechoslovakia that year. He was followed in this by Berlinguer, the Italian CP leader, and Georges Marchais in France. They adopted a more independent view, which subsequently became known as “euro-communism”.

But far from a return to genuine Leninism, this was rather a turn towards social-democratic reformism and even to national patriotism. The more independent the European CPs grew from Moscow, the more dependent did they became on their national bourgeoisie. This was a development that Trotsky had predicted in his 1928 pamphlet Critique of the Draft Programme of the Communist International, where he warned that the adoption of the “theory” of Socialism In One Country would end up with the national-reformist degeneration of the parties in the Communist International.

With a delay of some years, this was exactly what happened. The Italian, French and Spanish CPs removed themselves from control by Moscow, but in so doing they abandoned any pretence of following the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

“The transition”: a new counter-revolution

The terrible defeat of the Spanish working class in the 1930s had far-reaching consequences after 1939 and it took a long time before the proletariat could recover. A few examples are enough to give a sense of the terrible plight of the Spanish workers at that time. Wages in the countryside were fixed to half of what they had been during the Republic. They would not reach the 1931 level again until 1956. Around 190 prison camps were set up in Spain with somewhere between 367,000 and 500,000 prisoners. While the official executions stood at “only” 35,000, some historians, such as Anthony Beevor (who certainly cannot be accused of being a Socialist), estimate that the figure could be closer to 200,000.

The real figure will probably never be known, but there was a thorough cleansing, a purging of all dissidence. The flower of the Spanish working class was liquidated. However, throughout the 1960’s there was widespread industrialization of the country, with many automobile factories opening, especially in the Basque Country and Catalonia. The proletariat regained some confidence and strikes became more common. Between 1964 and 1966 there were 171,000 working days lost due to industrial action. Between 1967 and 1969 the figure rose to 846,000 and from 1973 to 1975 there were 1,548,000.

The communists had conquered the majority in the workers’ commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CCOO) and linked them up on a national scale, forming a very strong trade union confederation of more than 200,000 members. They had begun this work by painstaking activity in the state-controlled vertical “unions” where they succeeded in winning over many of the most militant elements.

When Franco finally died on November 20th 1975, the Communist Party was in an extremely powerful position. The CP had in its ranks a big majority of the proletarian vanguard, including a large number of extremely heroic and self-sacrificing men and women. At that time it had a far bigger base in the organized working class than the Socialist Party (PSOE), thanks to years of consistent and highly effective underground work. The PCE claimed a membership of 150,000 and its journal El Mundo Obrero had a print-run of 200,000 per issue.

The fall of the dictatorship occurred in a tumultuous revolutionary period, with mass strikes and demonstrations. There were elements of dual power. Between 1976 and 1978 the figure for working days lost due to strikes rose to 13.2 million, with more than 5.7 million workers involved (60% of the working population). More than 10,000 people, including the CC.OO leadership, had been imprisoned in 1972, accused of “subversive political activity”. With the death of El Caudillo, people demanded that they be released and that all political parties be legalized.

But for many workers, the issue of democracy was not the only question. They felt that power was within their grasp. The most advanced workers understood instinctively that it would not be enough to overthrow the Franco dictatorship, but rather what was required was to destroy its roots. The movement had a clearly anti-capitalist character. That was shown most clearly by the events of the general strike in Vitoria in March 1976, with the emergence of bodies of dual power.

What was the role of Carrillo in this situation? Already in 1973, when the fall of the dictatorship was simply a matter of time, he had signed on behalf of the PCE, the infamous “Democratic Junta” coalition together with liberals, former fascists and even some monarchist parties. Having been smuggled illegally into Spain in 1976 he began to meet secretly with Adolfo Suárez, the former fascist who had been appointed by King Juan Carlos as prime minister and who for decades had been an integral part of the Francoist state, even leading the notorious Falange Movement.

Scandalously, Carrillo worked out a compromise with Suárez, resulting in the legalization of the PCE in 1977. For this a price had to be paid, however. And what was the price? Not only did the Party renounce the struggle against capitalism, it even embraced the monarchy, the national flag and the national anthem! The main slogan was now a “broad democratic government”, i.e. a national unity government.

The revolutionary wave was moving rapidly in the direction of an open clash with the forces of reaction. Things came to a head in January 1977, when fascists murdered five communist lawyers of the Workers’ Commissions in the Atocha district of Madrid. A wave of fury swept the country. The workers were ready for anything. But the PCE put the brakes on. At the massive funeral of the lawyers, the CP stewards would not allow any banners, slogans or chants. Carrillo and the other CP leaders were only interested in pursuing their intrigues and manoeuvres at the top. At its 1978 congress the party formally abandoned Leninism, although, if the truth be told, this was just a formal recognition of the fact that the party had long ago abandoned any genuine revolutionary position.

The ruling class seized the opportunity with both hands. When in October 1977 the infamous Pactos de la Moncloa agreements were signed, they bore the signature of Santiago Carrillo on behalf of the PCE and its trade union confederation CC.OO. This pact established that wages could not rise more than 22%, when inflation stood at 30%, that the peseta was to be devalued and that the bosses could sack 5% of the workforce without notice. In other words, this deal was a betrayal of the interests of the working class. By the end of 1977 the purchasing power of the working class had already fallen by 10%.

This period was known as “the Transition” (allegedly from dictatorship to democracy), but it was in fact a huge fraud. The hated monarchy was retained and played a central role. The Civil Guard and other repressive bodies remained in being. Nobody was made responsible for the crimes and atrocities of the old regime. The murderers and torturers walked freely in the streets. The people of Spain were told to forget the one million who were killed in the Civil War. None of this was supposed to have happened. And this monstrosity was eagerly advocated by Santiago Carrillo.

The masses were bitterly disappointed. In particular, the activists who had sacrificed so much, risked their lives, lost their jobs, suffered imprisonment, beatings and tortures, felt deceived. Thousands of militants resigned from the left parties and trade unions in disgust. This wave of disillusionment prepared the way for a period of semi-reaction which began in the early 1980’s. For the second time Carrillo had managed to play a key role in the derailment of a revolution. Let us give the last words on his role in 1976 to the Financial Times, the main organ of the British capitalist class:

"The support of the PCE, both for the first as the second administration of Suárez has been open and sincere. Mr. Carrillo was the first leader to give his support to the Moncloa agreement and inevitably the PCE has backed the government in parliament. (…)

“But being the party which controls the majority trade union confederation CCOO and the best organized political party in Spain, its help has been crucial in some of the most tense moments of the transition. The active moderation showed by the communists before and after the massacre of workers in Vitoria in March 1976, [after] the shooting down of five communist lawyers in January 1977 and during the Basque general strike of May 1977 – just to name three examples – was decisive in order to avoid that Spain fall into an abysm of civil conflict and to allow the continuation of reforms” (Financial Times, 13th December 1978)

The break with the PCE

In the 1970s, Carrillo strongly opposed the PSOE Socialist Party which he thought had a too leftist rhetoric, which would endanger the “transition towards democracy”. His proclaimed “tactic” was that Spain needed a “historic compromise” between conservatives and Communists. This “compromise” was entirely in the interest of the conservatives and not of the CP, which was utterly wrecked as a result of this policy.

To obtain the historic compromise that he had in mind, an alliance with Suárez and his UCD party was necessary. Unfortunately for him, the ruling class itself was split and the UCD party was very heterogeneous. In January 1981, Suárez was forced to resign. One month later, on February 23, a section of the army and the Civil Guard held the Members of Parliament hostage at gunpoint in a failed coup d’état.

The role of King Juan Carlos in these events has never been clarified, and many people believed that he was somehow involved in the coup. However, once it was clear that the coup had already failed, he finally came out against the plotters. The main fraction of the ruling class obviously understood that a coup under these conditions would have produced an extremely explosive situation which could have put the very foundations of capitalism into question.

Carrillo had lost Suárez as his main ally, and the PCE was punished for its opportunism when it suffered a huge electoral setback in October 1982. The CP’s vote was reduced to 3.6%, whereas the PSOE (Socialist Party) under Felipe Gonzalez was elected with 46% of the votes. The PCE was in ruins, its membership had fallen drastically and its paper was a shadow of its former self.

At first, Carrillo pretended to continue as though nothing had happened. He tried to balance between the different factions in the PCE, the renovadores who wanted to go still further to the right, and the more pro-soviet sectors of the party which represented a left-wing opposition. But in the end he had to resign from his post as General Secretary, as the electoral disaster was too evidently a product of his opportunist policies and betrayals.

From that point on, from November 1982 to April 1985, he retained his parliamentary seat andalso his seat on the National Executive Committee. But strong contradictions were building up between himself and the new PCE General Secretary, Gerardo Iglesias who wanted to make a broad alliance of left parties. This plan gave rise in the end to the United Left (Izquierda Unida) which exists today.

Carrillo preferred a “Communist regroupment” with the other small Communist Party – a position that made no sense at all. Being a man of the apparatus with so many years in power, he wanted to maintain control at all costs. In the end, a ferocious inter-bureaucratic struggle took place and Carrillo and his supporters were expelled in 1985. They tried to set up a new party, the PTE (Spanish Workers’ Party), but failed to get any parliamentary representation.

After that experience Carrillo was reduced to the role of merely commenting on events and writing memoirs. As a supreme irony, all the members of his PTE party finally went into the PSOE, except for Carrillo himself who said that he had too many years of Communist militancy to go back to his old home. But politically he remained what he had always been: The most pragmatic (that is, unprincipled) of all reformist Social-Democrats.

The death of Carrillo… and the death agony of reformism

Santiago Carrillo will be remembered by Marxists as the saboteur of the marvellous Spanish Revolution of 1931-39 and the man who derailed the revolutionary period of 1976-79. But one cannot help seeing the symbolic death of Carrillo at a time when the tide is just beginning to turn. Carrillo represented Stalinism in its most degenerate, reformist, social-democratic manifestation. It is no coincidence that his death was lamented by such outstanding representatives of the Spanish ruling class as the royal family. But his death comes at a time when Spain is faced, not just with huge unemployment and the deepest economic crisis for decades, but also with the prospect of a major upsurge in the class struggle.

In 2011 we had the impressive movement of the revolutionary youth with hundreds of thousands of indignados occupying the main squares of the cities in Spain. But in 2012 the movement has reached an even higher level. Throughout the spring we had protests against the severe austerity measures that the Rajoy government is trying to impose. A general strike in March had a huge impact, after which we saw the spectacular movement of the miners fighting against the cuts in state subsidies for the mining sector. The recent mass demonstration in Madrid of hundreds of thousands on September 15 shows that a new hot autumn is being prepared.

The death of Carrillo coincides with the death agonies of classic reformism. Nowadays the reformist leaders do not have the same unquestioning support in the Spanish working class that they had in 1976. The new layers that are beginning to struggle do not see class collaboration as a viable means of obtaining anything in the Spain of 2012. On the contrary, they are beginning to see that the present crisis is not something transient but is far deeper and more serious.

Amongst the new generation of activists there is a renewed interest in the “historical memory”, the struggle to recover the genuine traditions of the past generations. Many are questioning the very essence of the “transition to democracy,” the great betrayal in which Carrillo played a central role. Republican flags are seen again by many in the Communist movement and in United Left as a symbol of struggle against the rotten monarchy which was imposed by the Franco regime and which Carrillo helped give “democratic” credentials.

This is an organic crisis of Capitalism and it cannot be resolved by the panaceas of reformism. Already the most advanced elements of the workers and youth are beginning to draw revolutionary conclusions. The coming period will be one of sharp clashes between the classes everywhere, and Spain will not be the last to enter the road of revolution.

We are returning to the situation of the 1970s, but on a higher level. The new generation have turned their backs on reformism and Stalinism and are seeking the road to revolution. Most have never even heard of Santiago Carrillo. His ideas are dead and buried along with him. The road is open for a return to the genuine ideas of socialism: the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, the only ideas that can guarantee the final victory of the working class.

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